What if there had been no Irish famine?

[Eamonnca1]

Well-put-together piece here on the famine* and the long term effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wViBPPjEdD8

Some fascinating alternative history possibilities here.

Without the famine, the population of the island could be as high as 36 million. I've seen some estimates as high as 40 million. Since there's about 42 million around the world claiming Irish ancestry, that sounds about right. That'd be far bigger than Australia (26m), far more than Netherlands (17m), not far behind Poland (39m). 36 million people living on the island would mean the place would be a lot more crowded, much more urban. Pick a town, any town, multiply its current population by about 4 (roughly speaking), and that's what you'd be looking at. 5 million in Dublin, 2.5m in Belfast, 0.8m in Cork, etc.. Even the small towns would be dramatically different. Lurgan would have 92,000 people living in it.

The country's influence on the world would be a whole lot bigger. Being more urbanized, it'd be more feasible to run public transport with all the big cities, so the railway network may well be bigger than it was in the 1950s instead of smaller. The place would look more like England or Japan in terms of how people live.

Without the famine, would there have been so much enthusiasm for home rule? Would the push for independence have looked more like what Scotland's trying to do now? Would we have left the UK regardless? Even if famine relief had been allowed, if mass starvation had been averted, there were still plenty of policies dating back to penal times that would have been fueling Irish resentment, so I'd say the push for independence would have happened regardless.

The famine was devastating to the Irish language. Without the mass starvation and emigration, I'd say Irish would have hung in there and today the Irish would be speaking English as a second language just like they do on the continent. We'd have a completely distinct sense of ourselves and probably less likely to be following English soccer teams, Scottish soccer teams, or consuming English media.

Would partition still have happened? Northern protestants would have been a much smaller minority in the early twentieth century. If the Brits were to partition the place, they probably would have carved out a smaller territory (say, Antrim and Down) that would still have included more than enough resentful fenians to oppose partition, particularly in Belfast which they were never going to cede. The unionists, being who they are, probably still wouldn't have been able to help themselves and would have discriminated against the catholics, so you'd see an alternate version of the Troubles playing out in a smaller area.

The diaspora would be a lot smaller. I wonder if the Irish would be as influential in Washington if they hadn't moved across the Atlantic in such big numbers.

Defence policy would be very different since we'd be 3 or 4 times bigger than Sweden where they build their own jets. We'd be bigger than Austria and Hungary combined. Energy policy would be very different since we'd be 4 or 5 times bigger than Norway.

Would the GAA still exist? I'd say yes, since soccer, rugby and cricket were making in-roads in Ireland when their respective bodies were founded regardless. The push for a Gaelic revival might be a bit more muted than what we got since the language would still have been going strong, but the influx of foreign games would still have motivated people to codify Gaelic games and get them organized. Counter-intuitively, Gaelic games would have probably made its way into foreign communities in a more widespread way since the Irish communities abroad wouldn't have been so large and self-contained. The same dynamics that spread English sports around the world (small number of people traveling abroad, inviting locals to play to make up the numbers) would have come into play, so Gaelic games would probably have a higher profile on the world stage, probably as big as Rugby is today.

I think it's fascinating to think about, and what was robbed of us. What might have been if we were allowed to control our own destiny.

*Some people find this term "famine" objectionable because they think it implies that it was a natural disaster, which we all know it wasn't. The word means a scarcity of food and does not refer only to natural disasters. Famines are almost never natural disasters, so I hope we don't get derailed into a semantics match.

[ONeill]

Fermanagh would win Ulster.

[general_lee]

Less amalgamations.

[armaghniac]

Mayo would have a brave few all Irelands.

[AustinPowers]

No Celtic or rangers

JFK wouldn't have  been assassinated.  Or born, even

The Fields of  Athenry wouldn't have been written, nor would it be sung at  Celtic Park (but that wouldn't exist  anyway)

'Taking the soup' wouldn't  have been a saying

The England football team  wouldn't be full of  players of Irish descent

The Ireland football  team wouldn't be full of  players of English descent

[seafoid]

The question is less about the Famine than about the Brits.
If there had been no Famine there would have been no occupation and there would have been a sustainable food supply. Population growth pre 1845 would have been lower.
Would there have been an industrial policy ? Emigration would have been lower. The influence of the church would have been lower. Sectarian tension in the North would have been lower. Cavan would not have won 5 Sam's.
Tyrone would have won their first all Ireland earlier.

https://youtu.be/cxeAr3n2Ous

[markl121]

Derry might have more than one all ireland as they could draw on a greater player pool from Derry city due to no soccer as opposed to relying on south Derry to provide the majority of players.

[Rossfan]

We'd have run out of land to grow spuds on so emigration to the US  and elsewhere would have become necessary from the 1850s.

[Cyril Farrell fan]

The population wouldn't have kept growing to be 40 million. Prosperity would have meant smaller family sizes.

[trailer]

Lurgan would have 92,000 people living in it.

Imagine 92,000 Lurganites running around. Christ the night.

[Eamonnca1]

We'd have run out of land to grow spuds on so emigration to the US  and elsewhere would have become necessary from the 1850s.

Food would be imported since the place would be more industrialised

[Eamonnca1]

Lurgan would have 92,000 people living in it.

Imagine 92,000 Lurganites running around. Christ the night.

Just wait till you hear about Portadown...

[seafoid]

Scotland didn't have a famine. It benefited from the Empire and industrialised from the 1850s on. It built great infrastructure and was very advanced.
The industrial infrastructure was dismantled in the 1980s.
Ireland is richer than Scotland.

[Rossfan]

We'd have run out of land to grow spuds on so emigration to the US  and elsewhere would have become necessary from the 1850s.

Food would be imported since the place would be more industrialised

Who would have been doing this industrialising?

[Eamonnca1]

We'd have run out of land to grow spuds on so emigration to the US  and elsewhere would have become necessary from the 1850s.

Food would be imported since the place would be more industrialised

Who would have been doing this industrialising?

Bigger population, bigger economy, plenty of workers, etc.. More attractive to capital.